New Starts in the Studio and Kitchen

I did a bit of printing on cloth and tea bags today while a friend is in the studio working on small dry point etchings. As soon as there were a few prints hanging up to dry my daughter asked what I was planning to do with them. I told her I was just collecting materials to start something new.

Here is the beginning. Lots of bits arranged on a sheet of rusted paper to be looked at and rearranged….and then later glued and stitched and tied down. It felt good to just “play” with the papers, cloth and sticks and prints.

Here is a very special gift my friend, Marla made for me.

It only stands about five inches high and on the glass she etched a story about how much like a rock I am in keeping it together here as Lee slowly slips further away. Note the small book of my hands and the kantha stitched cloth like my dementia shawl. There is a tiny wooden wine glass to represent Lee’s bowl turning that he used to do and the need to relax and have a drink. This is just such a little treasure.

Our daughter, Amy, helped me make ginger marmalade yesterday. What a process! The fumes watered our eyes and made us cough. The exhaust fan on the range got an extra workout during the almost two hours it took to cook the chunks of ginger to the soft stage.

Here is the process in pictures.

About four cups of chopped ginger cooking up in water.

Two hours later being turned into marmalade.

The ugly greenish water poured off needed food coloring to look edible because this slime green just was not what would make an attractive jelly with the gingery water.

I forgot how much sugar it takes to make jelly!

And here is the color adjusted jelly cooking down.

And here it is in jars. One small problem is that it is slow to set up. We know we used the right amount of pectin but the ginger seems a bit stubborn. The jelly is setting up better and I may not redo it, but that marmalade needs to go back in and get cooked with additional pectin.

And the taste of it might just take the top of your head off. Maybe longer cooking on the front end with more water changes would be the answer.

All I know is that if you make a nice seedy french toast, butter it, add a large dollop of plain yogurt and top off with this gingery marmalade, you have one lovely breakfast.

We are waiting until after Christmas to decide how much needs to be cooked again.